Less than 24 hours after the death of Camila Batmanghelidjh on New Year’s Day, Mojtaba Darazkan became a father for the first time. His wife was in labour when he got the news. Twenty years ago, as a lost, angry and rootless teenager, he had been taken under the wing of the charity she created, Kids Company. Without Batmanghelidjh, he wouldn’t be here now, he says: “Worst-case scenario? I’d be in prison.”
Darazkan, a teacher with a master’s in engineering, met Batmanghelidjh when he was a 17-year-old unaccompanied asylum seeker, starving in a tiny, freezing room in south London. He was ambitious and bright, but isolated; he struggled with his mental health and spoke little English. His overworked social worker was decent, he says, but she also knew that social services couldn’t provide what he needed. She knew a charity that could, though.
